All the passages below are taken from
Charles Stanleys book The Blessing of Brokenness, published in 1977.

When many people think of wholeness, they
automatically turn to matters of health, sickness, injury, or death.
Wholeness, however, is a matter of harmony---body, soul, and spirit. It is
living in such a way that all facets and aspects of our lives are interrelated
in a health-giving, sound, and resilient way.

When God breaks us, he does so with the
purpose of putting us back together again---better than before, and ultimately,
so that we might be whole.

Paul prayed a wonderful prayer for the
Thessalonians in which he spoke of wholeness: "May God himself, the God of
peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be
kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

We can always trust God's purpose for us
to be wholeness and multiplication, not fragmentation or diminishment.

WHOLENESS
INVOLVES ALL OF OUR BEING

Let me share several key principles with
you about wholeness. First, we must recognize that we have three aspects to our
being---spirit, soul, and body.

The body is the way in which we relate to
our environment. We have five senses---we smell, see, taste, hear, touch.
We live in a physical shell that allows us to interact with the physical world.

We have a soul---a mind, will, emotions,
conscience, and consciousness.
We cannot see the soul, but we each know that it is part of us. The soul is
our means for relating to other people. We have an awareness of ourselves in
relationship to others. At the soul level we can laugh with others, love
others, and receive love from others, or we can be jealous, angry, and bitter
toward others. We choose with our will and mind how we will act in the
world---and largely, how we will act toward other people.

We also have a spirit---the inner person.
With the spirit we relate to almighty God.

When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of
Eden, they had perfect bodies, perfect souls, and perfect spirits. God placed
them in dominion over the physical world, and they lived in perfect harmony with
each other and with God.

God said to them about one particular
tree in the Garden of Eden, "You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die" (Genesis 2:17).

They ate, and they died. But what died
immediately in that act of disobedience? Not their bodies, because they remained
alive for hundreds of years. Not their soul, because they still related to each
other and to their children. What died was their capacity to relate to God
spiritually. Paul wrote: "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions
and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and
of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those
who are disobedient" (Ephesians 2:1-2).

Our sinful state is a state of inner
death. A person may do very
well in the physical realm, and even do quite well in the soul realm, but unless
a person is in right relationship with God through Jesus Christ, he is dead in
the spirit realm. Only a believer in Jesus Christ has the potential to be a
whole person because unless the spirit is made alive in Christ, the spirit facet
of a person is out of sync with the rest of his or her being. We cannot be whole
if we have only a good body and good relationship with the physical world, and a
good soul and good relationships with other people. To be whole we must have
a cleansed spirit and a good relationship with God.

The Bible says that when we receive Jesus
Christ as our personal Savior, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us. This Spirit
of God allows our spirits to be united with God's spirit. Our spirits come to
life because he is life! When the Holy Spirit dwells in us, we are given a
sensitivity to God, an awareness of him, and a living relationship with him.
That relationship allows us to talk to him and him to talk to us. We are open in
new ways to understanding the Word of God and to receiving guidance and
direction from the Holy Spirit. We also are more sensitive to sin and to the
convicting power of the Holy Spirit. Our spirit has been born anew---we have a
new spiritual life!

Here's the problem. The unbelieving world
knows nothing about the divine spiritual life. They think they are spiritual
when they follow a form of spiritual ritual or get into the metaphysical realm,
but that is not godly spirituality. Any spirituality apart from the Holy Spirit
is spirituality rooted in evil. Mostly, however, the unbelieving world doesn't
care about spiritual things. The world's philosophy is, "If it looks good, get
it. If it feels good, touch it. If it smells good, have some of it. If it tastes
good, eat a lot of it. If it sounds good, keep listening." The world lives by
its senses and appetites.

We all have appetites. We have an
appetite for beauty---we like to look at beauty and experience it. We all have
appetites for food, for water, for sex. We also have appetites related to the
soul---we have a need for love, a desire to grow, a longing to learn. We have an
appetite for independence and freedom to move and to express ourselves. But as
long as a person is without a relationship to God, these appetites run according
to their own power. They degenerate into what the Bible calls the "lusts" of the
flesh---a voracious greed for all that appears good in the physical and soul
realms. Appetites run amok cause many of the problems we see today in
relationships, in businesses, in society at large.

The believer in whom the Holy Spirit
dwells is one who has a new "control system" in place. The Holy Spirit puts all
of the appetites, desires, and impulses of the flesh and soul under the command
of the spirit. The divine order for our own creation---spirit over soul over
body---is reestablished. When that happens we can experience wholeness.

The rebellion, therefore, that keeps us
from being whole is a rebellion of the spirit. The things that stand as
obstacles to our being made whole are ultimately things in the spirit, among
them

 lack of trust

 pride

 greed

 anger

 hatred

 bitterness

 fear

For the Lord to bring us to wholeness, he
must deal with the areas of our lives that keep us from wholeness. They are at
the heart of what separates us from the fullness of God's desire for us.

WHOLENESS IS MORE
THAN SKIN DEEP

The trouble many people have is that they
don't see the spiritual principles involved in the various situations and
circumstances they encounter on a daily basis. Even though they have been born
again in their spirits, they continue to live---by force of habit and also by
force of will---according to old patterns. They see things only on the surface,
and they respond to life superficially.

When we begin to see life the way God
sees it, we see that life has an ever-flowing spiritual undercurrent. All of
life flows from the spiritual dimension. Our desires and ideas and emotions are
motivated by the spirit and flow through the soul for expression through the
body.Every act of relating to others---what we say, what we do, who we
see, and why---has a spiritual dimension and purpose. In fact, everything we
do in the physical, mental, or emotional realm has a spiritual component to it.

When we regard our own brokenness, our
natural tendency is to look only on the surface. Our society uses different
forms of the word break to describe brokenness at the circumstantial or
relationship level.

·We say that a person's
health is "broken" if they are exhausted or have a serious breakdown.

·When a couple severs their
relationship, we say that they "broke up."

·When we suffer financial
loss, we say that we are "going broke."

Very often, when we are broken, we limit
our perspective on brokenness to the physical or emotional realm.

The more important questions to ask in
times of brokenness are these:

·What is happening in the
spiritual area of my life?

·What might God be desiring
to do in my relationship with him?

·How might God work in this
time of brokenness to restore me, renew me, remake me, and remold my
relationship with him?

·How might God work in and
through this situation or circumstance to bring me to greater wholeness?

These questions bring us squarely back to
the purpose of God: a total trust relationship with him so he might use us as
whole men and women, strong in spirit and completely obedient to him and subject
to his leading.

God's purpose is always accomplished
ultimately at the spiritual level.
Outer circumstances may or may not vary. They certainly change only according to
God's timing. Our role in times of brokenness is to submit not only to what
God desires to do in our lives, but also to his timetable. Wholeness may not
come quickly or easily, but it is worth the wait!

WHOLENESS TAKES
TIME

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "Therefore
we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are
being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for
us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what
is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is
unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

When we find ourselves broken, we must be
very careful not to attempt to predetermine either the methodology or the
timetable for our own recovery. God will reveal his plan and purpose to us
step by step. Very rarely does he give insight into the total plan he has for
us. We are called to trust him day by day by day.

It may very well seem to us that we are
wasting away daily, but if we will look beneath the surface to the inner work
God is doing, we are actually growing and being strengthened day by day.

I've seen this happen countless times,
very often as people struggle with terminal diseases. Their outer bodies
literally seem to waste away. And yet, if they are willing to turn to God and to
submit completely to him and trust him with their lives, an inner beauty and
spiritual strength begins to develop that far outshadows and far outweighs
anything happening in the physical realm. Sometimes their bodies are healed
physically, sometimes not. But the far more important thing for eternity is that
they be healed in their spirit. When God is at work in our spirits, we must
recognize openly that the most valuable facet of our being---truly the eternal
facet of our lives---is being strengthened, nourished, and refined. That is the
dimension of wholeness that truly counts.

We also must recognize that no matter how
long we struggle, our time of trial is only momentary. Even if we have an
affliction or time of brokenness that lasts for years, even decades, what is
that compared to all of eternity? No mathematical calculation is possible
between finite time and infinity. We are wise to keep perspective---what we are
experiencing in outer circumstances and situations will one day change. What is
happening on the inside of us, in the realm of our spirit, is what has the
potential to last and remain unchanged.

Paul tells the Corinthians to fix their
eyes on what is unseen. That's good advice for us, too, at any time we are
broken. No matter how bad things may look, if we submit our lives to God, he is
at work creating something good and something lasting. He is making us whole,
beginning in the unseen spiritual dimension of our lives. He is putting things
back into their proper order: the spirit first, the soul second, the physical
third.

A number of years ago, I pushed myself to
the point of serious physical exhaustion. My physician prescribed rest---not
just for a week or two, but for as many months as necessary. My associates
agreed, and I went to a small island where I had nothing to do but walk the
beach and think and pray. That was too much rest! I found it much more
therapeutic to return home and to become a "carpenter's helper" to the men who
were building my home. Gradually I began to return to my activities as a pastor
on a part-time and then full-time basis.

During those weeks and months, I not only
found my physical strength returning, but I also gained a new perspective on my
life and my work. I faced some tough questions. Was I going to relinquish
authority to my key staff members and allow God to work in them and through
them, or was I going to burden myself with every decision and the details of
every program? Was I going to take time off to rest, or keep a seven-day-a-week
schedule? Was I going to learn how to relax and play, or was I going to be an
all-work, no-play person?

The real issue was one of trust. Was I
going to trust God or myself?

Some six months after I first went away
to rest, I entered the pulpit one Sunday morning and said to myself, "I'm back."
My energy was back, my perspective was right, and most important, my
relationship with God was deeper and richer.

The lasting aspect of that experience was
not physical. I still get tired and need rest. The lasting impact wasn't solely
in my relationships. I still tend to take on too much and work too hard. The
real lasting impact of that experience on me was that I came to a spiritual
realization that God is not the copilot of my life; he's the pilot! I yielded
total control to him.

The real benefit of those months was that
I learned to rest in God. I learned how to relax in his will and let him unfold
before me his plan and purposes. I put myself into a position where I now allow
God to nudge me in my spirit so that I recognize when I need a break or need to
let go. My life is not mine; it's his.

WHOLENESS
GLORIFIES GOD

In eternity, you and I will be God's
trophies. We are the trophies of his grace; the trophies of Christ's death,
burial, and resurrection; the trophies of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives.Our purpose is to bring him glory. Our greatest glory lies not
in what we can achieve and do on our own, but solely in what we allow the Lord
to do in our lives so that we bring him glory. We can never know greater
satisfaction or have any greater acclaim than to lay our crowns at his feet and
to be presented to him as a work in which there is no shame, fault, flaw, or
darkness.

We often lose sight of the fact that this
life is preparation for the life to come. In this life we are going to school.
The process is one of learning and growing and developing. It is a process of
becoming. And when we yield to God's purposes, the process is one of becoming
whole. When my will is eventually saddle-busted completely, then I belong heart,
soul, mind, body, spirit, and everything to him. When that happens, my life is
totally and completely his responsibility. I am his to do with as he pleases.
And that, my friend, is when the excitement in life truly begins! [54-64]